frenchbread Posted May 7 Report Share Posted May 7 Prompted by heightened concerns about corporate ties to states sponsoring terrorist activity, New York City Comptroller William C. Thompson, Jr. is calling for a review of three U.S. companies that conduct business with terrorist-linked countries. Thompson has submitted shareholder resolutions on behalf of the New York City Police and Fire Department Pension Funds to the Halliburton Company, ConocoPhillips and the General Electric Company.The resolutions call on shareholders to vote to establish a Board of Directors' committee to review the corporation's operations with reference to "potential financial and reputational risks.""If we are trying to eradicate terrorism, we must ensure that companies in our portfolio are not using off-shore subsidiaries to legally evade United States sanctions against terrorist-sponsoring states," Comptroller Thompson said. "This is an issue of paramount importance.""We believe their use of off-shore and United Kingdom subsidiaries to establish operations with countries that sponsor terrorism violates the spirit, if not the letter of the law," he added. "These actions also expose the companies to the prospect of negative publicity, public protests, and a loss of consumer confidence, all of which can have a negative impact on shareholder value."Halliburton opened an office in Iran under the name Halliburton Products and Services Ltd., its Cayman Islands subsidiary, in February 2000. The resolution requests the following statement be put before shareholders for a vote at Halliburton's annual meeting on May 21: "The Iranian government has actively supported and funded terrorist operations against innocent civilians outside its own borders. These activities led to the imposition of government sanctions that provide that virtually all trade and investment activity with Iran by U.S. corporations is prohibited."The Police and Fire Department funds have more than $18 million in holdings in Halliburton. In total, the city's five pension funds have invested more than $23 million in the corporation.Halliburton has challenged the resolution. The firm has asked the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to refrain from sanctioning the company if Halliburton omits the proposal from its 2003 proxy materials. The SEC has not yet responded to the request.General Electric conducts business operations with the Iranian government through its Canadian subsidiary, General Electric Hydro. The two funds have more than $205 million in holdings in General Electric. The city's five funds have invested $951 million in General Electric. Discussions began between the Comptroller's Office and General Electric last week to examine the issue.ConocoPhillips has operations in Iran and Syria through its UK subsidiary, Conoco, Ltd.The two funds have more than $31 million in holdings in ConocoPhillips. The city's five pension funds have invested more than $124 million in ConocoPhillips. ConocoPhillips has not challenged the resolution. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bigpoppanils Posted May 8 Report Share Posted May 8 hmmmmm Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
frenchbread Posted May 8 Author Report Share Posted May 8 <bump> Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mr mahs Posted May 8 Report Share Posted May 8 Originally posted by frenchbread <bump> Looks like these companies have some explaining to do..What's your point? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
frenchbread Posted May 8 Author Report Share Posted May 8 Originally posted by mr mahs Looks like these companies have some explaining to do..What's your point? what's my point?...well, my point is the same you have when you talk about the french companies that "supposedly" deal/dealt with nations in the axis of evil...you sure have a lot to say about companies behaving like that when they're french...but somehow, when they're ours, it doesn't seem to bother you nearly as much...allegations against french companies: kill them all...fuckin' bastards...^&*(%!...sure-fire facts against u.s. companies: mmm...some explaining to do...that's my point... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mr mahs Posted May 8 Report Share Posted May 8 Originally posted by frenchbread what's my point?...well, my point is the same you have when you talk about the french companies that "supposedly" deal/dealt with nations in the axis of evil...you sure have a lot to say about companies behaving like that when they're french...but somehow, when they're ours, it doesn't seem to bother you nearly as much...allegations against french companies: kill them all...fuckin' bastards...^&*(%!...sure-fire facts against u.s. companies: mmm...some explaining to do...that's my point... I still don't understand how you can compare the 2.On one hand you have some american companies having overseas subsidiraries doing buisness with some questionable countries I see that and these companies which are some HUGE conglomerates have some explaining to do, I agree.. But when you compare buisness dealings to supplying the Iraqi leadership with Euro passes so that they can slip away from coaltion forces or inform Iraqi leadership about private meetings between the U.S and France or even better supply weapons technology and equipment for the last 12 years.. then yes we have a promblem..... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
frenchbread Posted May 8 Author Report Share Posted May 8 Originally posted by mr mahs I still don't understand how you can compare the 2.On one hand you have some american companies having overseas subsidiraries doing buisness with some questionable countries I see that and these companies which are some HUGE conglomerates have some explaining to do, I agree.. But when you compare buisness dealings to supplying the Iraqi leadership with Euro passes so that they can slip away from coaltion forces or inform Iraqi leadership about private meetings between the U.S and France or even better supply weapons technology and equipment for the last 12 years.. then yes we have a promblem..... we do have a problem...you being such a HYPOCRITE...that's the problem...now you're talking about the french government...how typical...stop trying to mix everything up like our gov't does...who's talking about passports...i'm not comparing u.s. businesses with the french government...i'm comparing french companies with u.s. companies...when you hear anything from anyone about french companies, you guys jump on them, and insult them, france and every french citizen...but when you get real hard facts about u.s. companies doing business that are in the axis of evil, all you say is "they have some explaining to do"...well tell me this...what would you say if all the companies in this article were french?...would you say that they have some explaining to do?...yea right...p.s.: and for your information, our gov't as well as u.s. companies have supplied iraq (and many other countries), with weapons, including wmd's... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mr mahs Posted May 8 Report Share Posted May 8 France the gov't, the companies and the peoiple can go to hell..Except you...What do you wan't to hear I will boycott GE because they have done buisness with Iran?? I thought you were refering to the French government catching flack I didn't realise that you were refering to french companies.. maybe I assumd the government itself because I have never heard of any French companies coming under scrutiny for their dealings... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kramadas Posted May 8 Report Share Posted May 8 Originally posted by mr mahs France the gov't, the companies and the peoiple can go to hell..Except you... tsk..tsk...after all that France has done for this country during the war of independence. That could come off as being ungrateful. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
frenchbread Posted May 8 Author Report Share Posted May 8 Originally posted by mr mahs maybe I assumd the government itself because I have never heard of any French companies coming under scrutiny for their dealings... you never heard of any french companies coming under scrutiny for their dealings????...you should start to pay more attention to what you post:Originally posted by mr mahs One report said a French company covertly sold military spare parts to Iraq in the weeks before the war. Another indicated that a French oil company had been working with a Russian oil firm to clinch a deal with Saddam's government at the same time.that's taken straight from your first post on your thread "France Gave Passports to Fleeing Iraqi Officials"... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mr mahs Posted May 8 Report Share Posted May 8 Originally posted by frenchbread [allegations against french companies: kill them all...fuckin' bastards...^&*(%!...sure-fire facts against u.s. companies: mmm...some explaining to do... This is where the mistake was made.. I thought you were refering to french govt not companies geez shoot me.. It's hard sometimes because I work in a call center and post in between calls ... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sassa Posted May 10 Report Share Posted May 10 Halliburton admits it paid Nigerian bribeFri May 9, 1:51 PM ET WASHINGTON (AFP) - Oil services giant Halliburton, already under fire over accusations that its White house ties helped win a major Iraqi oil contract, has admitted that a subsidiary paid a multi-million dollar bribe to a Nigerian tax official. Halliburton, once run by Vice President Richard Cheney, revealed the illicit payments, worth 2.4 million dollars, in a filing Thursday with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). "The payments were made to obtain favorable tax treatment and clearly violated our code of business conduct and our internal control procedures," Halliburton said. Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown and Root (KBR), which paid the bribe, has been in the political spotlight since it was awarded a no-bid US government oil contract in Iraq in March. KBR is building a liquefied natural gas plant and an offshore oil and gas terminal in Nigeria. Halliburton told the SEC the bribe was discovered during an audit of KBR's Nigerian office. The payments were made in 2001 and 2002, Halliburton spokeswoman Zelma Branch told AFP's business ethics news service, AFX Global Ethics Monitor. Cheney led the company as chief executive from 1995 until August 2000, when he became President George W. Bush's running mate. "Based on the findings of the investigation we have terminated several employees," Halliburton said in the filing, adding that none of its senior officers was involved in the bribe. "We are cooperating with the SEC in its review of the matter," Halliburton said. "We plan to take further action to ensure that our foreign subsidiary pays all taxes owed in Nigeria, which may be as much as an additional five million dollars, which has been fully accrued." Halliburton said its code of business conduct and internal control procedures were "essential" to the way it ran its business. The group is already facing questions over its business in Iraq and its accounting practices. On Tuesday, a US lawmaker said the military had revealed for the first time that KBR had a contract encompassing the operation of Iraqi oil fields. Previously, the US Army Corps of Engineers had described the contract given to Halliburton as involving oil well firefighting. But in a May 2 letter replying to questions from Henry Waxman, a Democrat, the army said the contract also included "operation of facilities and distribution of products." Waxman, the top-ranking Democrat in the House of Representatives' committee on government reform, asked for an explanation. "These new disclosures are significant and they seem at odds with the administration's repeated assurances that the Iraqi oil belongs to the Iraqi people," Waxman said. The Army Corps of Engineers had said it decided to forgo competitive bidding on the first contract because of time constraints. But in a May 2 letter responding to questions from Waxman, military programs chief Lieutenant General Robert Flowers said the military assigned the work to KBR's services division in November 2002, under a pre-existing contract for the firm to provide logistical support to the US Army worldwide. Waxman has also criticized Halliburton for dealings with countries such as Iran, Iraq and Libya, cited by Washington as state sponsors of terrorism or members of the so-called "axis of evil". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
normalnoises Posted May 10 Report Share Posted May 10 http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&ncid=&e=7&u=/ap/20030507/ap_on_bi_ge/iraq_halliburtonHalliburton No-Bid Contract Up to $76.7M Wed May 7, 6:24 PM ET By LARRY MARGASAK, Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON - The no-bid contract that Halliburton Co. received to put out Iraqi oil well fires has risen to $76.7 million, pushed higher after the government gave Vice President Dick Cheney (news - web sites)'s former company the added job of restarting Iraq (news - web sites)'s oil industry.The expanded role has accounted for $24 million of the contract total so far. Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., disclosed Tuesday that Halliburton's KBR subsidiary would have more work than initially indicated in the March announcement of a contract to extinguish oil fires. The Bush administration denies there is any connection between Cheney's former role in running the Houston company and the Iraq contract work. Cheney, who led the company until August 2000, has had no role in the company's government contracts, the vice president's office has said. Asked whether the administration had a perception problem, presidential spokesman Ari Fleischer (news - web sites) said Wednesday, "Congressman Waxman has never met a Republican he didn't want to investigate." He directed questions to the contracting agency. That agency, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, acknowledged playing down the extra work in comments to the news media and Congress. Spokesman Scott Saunders said his organization did not emphasize the additional work because it only was a contingency in the original contract. "We didn't think the initial contract would be involved with operating facilities and distribution of the product, so we didn't play that up in the beginning in correspondence to Capitol Hill and in speaking to the news media," he said. Saunders said KBR is buying oil from Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Turkey to meet desperate shortages, especially in Baghdad, where there recently was only a five-day supply of gasoline. The agency has announced it would replace the Halliburton contract with one to be awarded in open competition, but Saunders acknowledged the bidding — supposed to begin by this month — is behind schedule. One of the Democrats' presidential hopefuls for 2004, former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, injected the contract into his campaign. "This coziness with Halliburton doesn't surprise me a bit," Dean said in Concord, N.H. "It's an emblem of an administration that has sold this country down the river." A spokeswoman for Halliburton said Tuesday the company's initial announcement of the contract on March 24 disclosed the larger role for its KBR subsidiary. Halliburton spokeswoman Wendy Hall pointed to the company's statement that following emergency work, the company would provide "for the continuity of operations of the Iraqi oil infrastructure." According to documents provided by the federal agency, the pay-as-you-go contract expanded as the Halliburton subsidiary fought a handful of fires, responded to spills, repaired war damage to oil facilities, assessed damage and worked to re-establish production systems. The $24 million addition was approved May 4, and included the biggest body of work so far. The "task order" includes repairs of distribution systems, buying oil outside Iraq to meet immediate needs, transportation, refining and distribution.______________________________It's All About the OilMichael T. Klare, May 7, 2003 With the news (http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&ncid=&e=7&u=/ap/20030507/ap_on_bi_ge/iraq_halliburton) today that the open-ended, no bid, contract for Dick Cheney's former company, Halliburton, included a deal to not only rebuild Iraq's oil production facilities, but for distributing the oil as well, many in Washington are questioning the administration's true intentions in Iraq. Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., said he was "concerned that the administration's reluctance to provide complete information about this and other Iraqi contracts has denied Congress and the public important information." Here Michael Klare breaks down the role Iraq's black gold plays in America's post-war plans:On the second day of the invasion of Iraq, U.S. commandos seized two Iraqi offshore oil terminals in the Persian Gulf, capturing their defenders without a fight. "Swooping silently out of the Persian Gulf night," exulted James Dao of The New York Times, Navy SEALs claimed "a bloodless victory in the battle for Iraq's vast oil empire." Dao's dramatic turn of phrase revealed more about the administration's plans for Iraq than almost every other report from the battlefield. While American forces turned a blind eye to the looting of Iraq's archeological treasures, they moved quickly to gain control over oilfields, refineries, and pipelines. Even before Iraqi resistance had been squelched, top U.S. officials were boasting that Iraq's oil infrastructure was safely in American hands. Oil had nothing to do with Washington's motives for the invasion, we were told. "The only interest the United States has in the region is furthering the cause of peace and stability, not in [iraq's] ability to generate oil," said press secretary Ari Fleischer in late 2002. But at a January briefing, an unnamed "senior Defense official" revealed that Gen. Tommy Franks and his staff "have crafted strategies that will allow us to secure and protect those fields as rapidly as possible in order to preserve those prior to destruction, as opposed to having to go in and clean them up after." When pressed, the "senior Defense official" (presumably Deputy Secretary Paul Wolfowitz) claimed that these fields would be protected so as to benefit the Iraqi people "at some point in the future." Other officials spoke of holding the fields "in trust" for the Iraqis. Nonetheless, the White House has talked with U.S. energy companies about assuming a major role in the postconflict development of Iraq's mammoth reserves. For now, the administration's main concern appears to be to put existing oilfields back into operation as rapidly as possible so as to help subsidize the costs of occupying and reconstructing Iraq. To insure that this process will move quickly, the Defense Department awarded a noncompetitive, multimillion-dollar contract to Halliburton, the Houston-based oil-services firm once headed by Dick Cheney, to fight fires and repair damage in the oilfields and begin the task of rehabilitation. In the coming months, other U.S. oil-services firms, including Fluor and Bechtel (both with close ties to the administration), will be invited to bid for even more lucrative contracts to rebuild Iraq's oil infrastructure. Ultimately, about $5 billion will be needed to restore Iraqi oil production to the levels achieved before the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq War and the 1991 Gulf War. Managing this complex enterprise will be an "interim authority" made up of Iraqis selected or approved by the U.S. government, presumably including expatriates like Ahmad Chalabi of the Iraqi National Congress (INC), who enjoys close ties with the CIA and Defense. It can be safely assumed, however, that U.S. occupation officials will retain ultimate authority over the oilfields during this period. Washington will seek United Nations Security Council resolutions lifting the economic sanctions in order to allow sales of Iraqi oil. But administration officials vow to exclude the UN from decisionmaking on the disposition of Iraqi oil assets. Once the fields are back in operation, the next item on the administration's agenda will be to determine the fate of the Iraqi National Oil Company, the state-owned firm that has managed Iraq's oil assets since their nationalization in the 1970s. Most of INOC's current managers wish to keep the company under state ownership, but some of the exile leaders being courted by the Bush team, including Chalabi, favor privatizing the firm and parceling it out in large pieces to major American and British oil companies. "American companies will have a big shot at Iraqi oil," Chalabi declared in September 2002. This approach was given further support by a meeting of expatriate Iraqi oil officials convened by the State Department in early March. The officials, members of the oil and energy panel of State's Future of Iraq Project, declared that any post-Saddam Iraqi government should "develop the right economic environment to allow investment in and utilization of its oil and gas resources." American oil firms have admitted to meeting with representatives of the INC and other exile groups to discuss postwar access to Iraqi oil. While exploitation of Iraq's existing fields, with total reserves estimated at 112 billion barrels (second only to Saudi Arabia's holdings of 261 billion barrels) is appealing enough, what U.S. firms really want is to be able to tap into Iraq's "virgin" (undeveloped) fields in remote parts of the country. According to the Energy Department, these undeveloped fields may hold as much as 200 billion barrels of oil, making this the largest pool of unexploited petroleum in the world. Saddam had awarded contracts to firms in Russia, China, and France to develop some of these fields, but any government installed by the United States--certainly one headed by Chalabi--would declare those contracts void. With most big fields in the United States and other mature production areas in decline, access to these reserves could prove essential to the survival and future prosperity of some of the major American energy firms. It is this fact, more than any other, that belies the administration's claim that oil had nothing to do with the decision to invade and occupy Iraq. Michael T. Klare, author of "Resource Wars: The New Landscape of Global Conflict" and a professor of peace and world security studies at Hampshire College in Amherst, Mass., is a military affairs analyst with Foreign Policy In Focus (online at www.fpif.org). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vicman Posted May 10 Report Share Posted May 10 SHOW ME THE MONEYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sassa Posted May 21 Report Share Posted May 21 Secret November Deal for Iraq's OilThe Pentagon and HalliburtonBy JASON LEOPOLDMonths before the United States military showered Iraq with bombs and missiles, the Department of Defense was secretly working with Vice President Dick Cheney's old company, Halliburton Corp., on a deal that would give the world's second largest oil services company total control over Iraq's oil fields, according to interviews with Halliburton's most senior executives.Moreover, classified Halliburton documents obtained by CounterPunch over the past month prove that the war in Iraq was as much about controlling the world's second largest oil reserves as it did about overthrowing the regime of Iraq's President Saddam Hussein.The deal between the Department of Defense and Halliburton unit Kellogg, Brown & Root to operate Iraq's oil industry, which was hatched as early as October 2002, according to the documents, and could ultimately be worth $7 billion, couldn't have come at a better time for Halliburton.Back in October of last year, Halliburton was saddled with a multibillion-dollar asbestos liability and the company was also suffering through a slowdown in domestic oil production. Halliburton's stock price responded swiftly, plummeting to $12.62 in October 2002, from a high of $22 the year beforee, and rumors began to swirl that the company would be forced to file for bankruptcy.But news of a pending war in Iraq meant that Halliburton's financial troubles would, like Saddam Hussein's regime, be history. Classified documents from November 2002 show that the Department of Defense recommended that The Army Corps of Engineers award a contract to Brown & Root to extinguish Iraqi oil well fires in addition to "assessing the condition of oil-related infrastructure; cleaning up oil spills or other environmental damage at oil facilities; engineering design and repair or reconstruction of damaged infrastructure; assisting in making facilities operational; distribution of petroleum products; and assisting the Iraqis in resuming Iraqi oil company operations.""The fact that the Department was planning for the possibility that it would need to repair and provide for continuity of operations of the Iraqi oil infrastructure was classified until March 2003," the agency said on its web site. "This prevented earlier acknowledgement or announcement of potential requirements to the business community."The Army Corps of Engineers has declassified portions of some documents related to its deal with Brown & Root. The deal memo can be viewed at <http://www.hq.usace.army.mil/cepa/iraq/factsheet.htm>Since October, when Halliburton was awarded the contract to repair Iraq's oil industry, the company's stock has nearly doubled. On Tuesday, the stock closed at $23.90.Publicly, when the Army Corps of Engineers was criticized by Washington lawmakers earlier this year for awarding the no-bid contract to Brown & Root because of the company's strong ties to Cheney, the agency said Brown & Root would do nothing more than extinguish oil well fires. Brown & Root was chosen, according to the Army Corps of Engineers, because Brown & Root could be "deployed" on short notice.However, according to interviews with Halliburton executives, company employees were working out of a hotel room in Kuwait City as far back as November assessing the Iraq's oil infrastructure and mapping out plans for operating Iraq's oil industry.A report in the magazine Business 2.0 from April 2003 makes this point clear."From behind the obsidian mirrors of his wraparound sunglasses, Ray Rodon surveys the vast desert landscape of southern Iraq's Rumailah oilfield. A project manager with Halliburton's engineering and construction division, Kellogg Brown & Root, Rodon has spent months preparing for the daunting task of repairing Iraq's oil industry. Working first at headquarters in Houston and then out of a hotel room in Kuwait City, he has studied the intricacies of the Iraqi national oil company, even reviewing the firm's organizational charts so that Halliburton and the Army can ascertain which Iraqis are reliable technocrats and which are Saddam loyalists," the story says.Halliburton, in a March news release, said it first began working on a plan to repair Iraq's oil infrastructure at the request of the Defense Department."The DoD, through its US Army Logistics Civil Augmentation Program (LOGCAP) III contract with KBR, tapped the company in November 2002 to develop the contingency plan. Implementation of the plan is being executed through a separate contract KBR now holds with the US Army Corps of Engineers," the news release says.A half-dozen Halliburton employees said that they don't believe Cheney played any role in the company securing the lucrative contract from the government, but they noted that the Army Corps of Engineers purposely downplayed the company's role in repairing Iraq's infrastructure because of Halliburton's ties to Cheney and the criticism that would likely come from Congressional Democrats who claim the government is playing favorites."Halliburton has been working with the United States government since the 1940s," said one executive who supplied CounterPunch with documents and requested anonymity. "But because Vice President Dick Cheney used to run the firm everyone automatically assumes that he had something to do with the government contracts we now get."Since 9-11, Halliburton's Brown & Root division is the only company that has profited from the so-called war on terror.Based on its performance providing U.S. troops in the Balkans with housing, food, water, mail, laundry, and heavy equipment (a job for which Halliburton has been paid $3 billion so far), the company won an unprecedented ten-year deal in December 2001 to supply similar logistical support to U.S. military operations around the world."The Pentagon's Logistics Civil Augmentation Program pays Halliburton through what's called a cost-plus arrangement, meaning that KBR is guaranteed to recover its expenses, plus receive a set profit, provided the contract terms are met. To date, KBR has received $830 million from the program. The company is also helping to run Incirlik Air Base and other U.S. military facilities in Turkey (where an initial contract, set to expire in September, was worth $118 million) and received $65 million to support bases in Afghanistan and Uzbekistan. What's more, it earned $33 million building cells for suspected al Qaeda members at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Overall, Halliburton's backlog of government revenue expanded 40% in the last three months of 2002 alone," Business 2.0 reported. .What is most troubling about the sweet deals Brown & Root has been awarded and what has lawmakers like Congressman Henry Waxman, D-California, up in arms is how the company ripped off the government to the tune of $2 million on several occasions while Cheney was chief executive of Halliburton and the company's long history of supporting terrorist regimes-including Iraq, Iran and Libya-despite U.S. sanctions on such countries.Last year, KBR agreed to pay the U.S. government $2 million to settle allegations it defrauded the military while Cheney was chief executive of parent company Halliburton. KBR was accused of inflating contract prices for maintenance and repairs at Fort Ord, a now-shuttered military installation near Monterey, Calif. The lawsuit, filed in Sacramento, alleged KBR submitted false claims and made false statements in connection with 224 delivery orders between April 1994 and September 1998. KBR and Halliburton has also paid out settlements to end investigations and lawsuits on half-a-dozen other occasions.In 1978, a grand jury indicted KBR on charges that it colluded with a competitor on marine construction work. KBR paid a $1 million fine to settle the charges. In 1995, the U.S. fined Halliburton $3.8 million for violating a ban on exports to Libya. Four years later, a Halliburton subsidiary opens an office in Iran, despite a U.S. ban on doing business in that country. In 2001, Halliburton shareholders lash out at company executives for its pipeline project in Burma, citing that country's human-rights abuses. Also in 2001, watchdog groups blast Cheney for placing 44 Halliburton subsidiaries in foreign tax havens.Halliburton's dealings in six countries - Azerbaijan, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Libya and Nigeria - show that the company's willingness to do business where human rights are not respected is a pattern that goes beyond its involvement in Burma..So how does the company continue to win such lucrative contracts with the government, as in the case of Iraq, in spite of its shady record?"KBR was selected for the award based on the fact that KBR is the only contractor that could commence implementing the complex contingency plan on extremely short notice," Halliburton said in a March news release.Despite Waxman's criticism of the government awarding the bulk of the work in Iraq to Halliburton unit Brown & Root, it appears that the company's role in the country is getting bigger by the second. And plans to open up the bidding to other companies appear to be a dead issue.On Monday, the Army Corps of Engineers said it awarded Brown & Root another $24 million contract, this time to distribute gasoline and cooking fuel in Iraq.The Army Corps of Engineers said the delivery order was awarded to Halliburton subsidiary on May 4 as part of the $7 billion umbrella contract awarded to the company in March for fire fighting services in Iraq.The Army Corps last week said the Halliburton subsidiary had received about $75 million in orders so far, and the total amount would likely reach about $600 million, far less than the worst-case figure of $7 billion estimated before the Iraq war.Corps spokeswoman Carol Sanders said the new order fell under the broad terms of the original contract and rejected criticism from Waxman, who said Halliburton now appeared to have a more lucrative and direct role in rebuilding Iraq's oil industry.She said Iraqi people urgently needed cooking oil and gasoline as they began rebuilding their country. Given the need to boil water to prevent disease, it was not feasible to competitively bid the work."We made the contract broad enough so we could handle issues just like this," she said.Specifically, Sanders said KBR was bringing supplies of liquefied national gas and gasoline to regional storage centers, where Iraqis were managing its distribution.KBR spokeswoman Wendy Hall said the latest contract was part of the broader contract, which aimed to maintain "the continuity of operations of the Iraqi oil infrastructure." Jason Leopold can be reached at: jasonleopold@hotmail.com Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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